Sunday, June 26, 2016

Chain of Command: Kampfgruppe von Luck Game 2, The Grizzled, and Three Cheers for Master

Panzergrenadiers making their tentative way through an orchard.

Martin and I played Game 2 of our CoC campaign this afternoon. The scenario required my Germans to cross the table dominated by a cluster of walled buildings on one end, and couple of hedge-enclosed areas. I did pretty well in the patrol phase, managing to secure a Jump-Off Point in the middle of the table.

The scenario called for a lot of vegetation... Those are all the trees I own.

Unlike in his previous game, Martin did not deploy his units early, forcing me to probe along the orchard with one section. This section was quickly engaged by a Vickers hidden in the attic of the building overlooking the road and orchard.

I sent another section up the other fork of the road and pushed into the woods. This section was then engaged by another section Martin deployed in response.

At this point I must state that Martin rolled incredibly well, managing to rack up three chain of command dice to my one, rolling several phases in succession, including four sixes and a random event that forced me to deploy another one of my squads before I intended, causing them to be exposed to enemy fire.

With my squads under fire (and one of them broken) I sent in my secret weapon: a Grille M proxying a Lorraine Schlepper (f). The big gun forced the Vickers in the attic to withdraw, whereupon I decided to push my luck: I sent the section on the left running towards the table edge, while the Grille put pedal to the metal and rolled down the road.

Martin quickly redeployed his Vickers and stopped my squad on the left, and with one of his (many) chain of command dice ambushed by Grille as it raced forward.

With my momentum lost and Force Morale low, I called a retreat.

Fg, wahj, Martin and I then played a couple of boardgames.

The first was The Grizzled, a WW1 themed co-operative card game where players take runs playing cards that represent either group adversity or personal psychological trauma. The aim of the game is to play through the deck and not accumulate too many of one kind of adversity during each round (whereupon the game is lost) - if you survive till the end of the deck, you have survived the war.

I generally do not like co-operative games, and this is no exception. The theme is pretty dark, and we felt that it can probably be re-themed to depict bomber crews during WW2 or infantrymen during Vietnam.

The next game we tried was Three Cheers for Master. This is a competitive tower-building/climbing game where foreminions make minions stack themselves atop each other so they can form the most impressive cheer-leading tower for the master.

I am not quite sure we got all the rules right, but the game looks like it has a lot of potential for strategic play. I would liken it to a game of Robo Rally where the cards you play stay relevant until the game's end. I would certainly like to give this game another try.